Reason, Emotion, and the SYSTEM

When speaking about whether or not a post-secondary education should be free or not, I found that the three main ways of knowing in this debate are reason, emotion, and faith (in our society).

In terms of reason, those against a free education could say that it wouldn't function in the realms of our economy. A small hand full of people said that our economy is fine and everyone that wants to can either get an education or find a job, but the fact that people believe that could go towards one of their arguments, that the quality of a free education will be lesser than that of a paid education (on the same spectrum, they argued that the people in the private institutions will end up in a bubble and not learn about the world outside of their socioeconomic class). Those for a free post-secondary education could form a reasonable argument in that that everyone who cannot afford an education deserves a free method of attaining one if they so please, simply because the amount of money in their bank account shouldn't determine the amount of knowledge they have access to.

Regarding emotion specifically in the film we watched, when the Cooper Union announced a tuition, most of the current students were appalled in that it was going against the words the institution was founded on. Its not like they would have to pay the tuition, because they were graduating, but they still felt an emotional connection to the school and any future students of the school, and believed it wouldn't be just to go against the school's word. Coincidentally, in class, a big reason why people stood on the free education side of the classroom was because it was "right." That it is somehow morally wrong to have something considered so vital in today's society be paid. That, especially recently, all of us are being bombarded with college tuition prices and countless ways to try for a scholarship or apply for financial aid, and perhaps some part of all of us felt that people children shouldn't have to be put through that kind of pressure (as if the pressure of applying wasn't bad enough).

Although when speaking about faith, I'm pretty sure its meant in a religious beliefs kind of way, I mean it in a faith in our government/society way. Now, I'm not saying everyone has faith in the government, so in that case, a lack of faith could cause peoples' opinions to sway. Many people have faith in the "system:" they believe that so long as they go to a good college and get a degree they will get a job and pay off their debts and start their lives, or they believe that college is the only way to do so. Some people have faith in that they can be successful as long as the work hard, regardless of whether or not they have a college education. Now although these beliefs don't inherently fall under one side of the debate or the other, they do contribute. Someone who believes that college is the only way to monetary success could either believe that everyone should have the opportunity to get an education (in order to strengthen the middle class), or they could believe that the less people that attend college, the richer they (the college valuing and attending individual) could become. People who don't necessarily find college as a necessity might find that a free education is viable, because they  don't understand the value that other people see in it - they wouldn't price it, or they believe that the more people go drastically into debt to earn a sheet of paper, the more sheeple will exist out there and the more unique and revered their outlook will become.